1106 My Way.

I guess maybe because I pay extra close attention to little details the nameless roommates from the previous page looked a lot more like DOA characters than they did to me. Not that they weren’t supposed to, but it was meant to be like looking at some kind of weird mirror mirror versions of them. Anyway, whatever. I didn’t want to keep explaining it over and over.

These pages were all made at strange times, with stuff going on. I was distracted a lot of the time, and a lot of mistakes crept in. It also kept building and building, so page 1108 is a complete mess. Well, it’s way off model anyway. I have found that as long as I have a framework up I can repair, or complete, a page pretty quickly, if forced to. The framework always takes the most time though. The upside to having things take too long, or have to be fixed, is that I feel like I have time to add little details I couldn’t normally. Freckles on young Carol, for example. It’s not all bad getting your schedule thrown off anyway.

More adventures of Julius Drywood:

A little way down the hall he found her carefully slinking back towards the others.

“Got spooked, huh?” He smiled.

“A little.” She replied sheepishly.

“You know, it really throws off your sexy cat persona when you scramble away from danger.” He laughed.

“It does not!” She groused. “Cats do that all the time. It’s very catlike to spaz out and run off.”

Julius opened his mouth to rebut, then closed it.

“Fair point.” He admitted. “Did you go far?”

“No… just down there a little.” She said, pointing back the way she had come. “It’s not good over there. I phased in and walked back because it feels gross.”

While her explanation was not technical it was accurate. Julius could feel it too. Even in the short moment he’d been passing under the door. They had to be near the source of whatever powered the ruins. Whatever is was gave off a repellant aura even more pronounced in the shadow plain.
They walked back into the room where Herrin had been hiding. He was not as tall as Julius, but stoutly made and darker skinned. A mop of wild black curls capped his head, and he looked to be a paladin in the same manner as Alina. Still clearly shaken and in a bad way, being found by friends had done a lot of good. He was able to recount the tragic tale of his party and how he had escaped, by sheer luck, into the deeper part of the temple. His injuries had made it impossible to fight his way back across the skeleton room, and this section was sealed off from whatever was next. There was no choice but to wait for rescue, which he actually could have waited for even longer. Julius suspected that madness might have claimed him before then though, and the thought of staying down here for much longer gnawed at him.

“Can you take him to the surface Twig?” Asked Regalius. “Being down here so long… Seems detrimental.”

“I don’t think so… maybe.” Twig frowned. “It’s long, and I’ve done it a lot.”

“I’d rather she not risk it.” Said Julius sternly. “We could lose them both.” There was a tone of finality in his voice that seemed to settle the matter.

“He’s well enough now to come with us.” Said Alina. “Just keep to the center and try not to strain yourself.” She said patting Herrin on the shoulder. Herrin nodded enthusiastically.
“I want to get to the end of this place and get out as soon as we can.” She continued. “It’s already likely to take us a day to get out, even though we have a clear map now.”

“We should rest for a few hour at least.” Niona signed. “I don’t think I can keep going like this if there’s more fighting to be done.” Everyone nodded in silent agreement. They had another miserable cold meal and settled down for a few hours of restless sleep.